Ernest O. Lawrence - American Physicist
(1901-1958)
1929
At the University of California, Ernest O. Lawrence invents the cyclotron, a device for accelerating particles to be used in nuclear disintigrations. The first such disintigrations with a cyclotron are accomplished in 1932.
In a cyclotron, charged particles, such as protons, are produced at the center of the instrument. These particles move in a circular path because of the confining magnetic field above and below. The particles are alternately pushed and pulled by the alternating electric current thereby acquiring more and more energy. As they move faster, they spiral outward. After about one hundred orbits they emerge from the instrument with great energy.
From Modern Physics by Kenneth Krane, 1983.
This material used by permission of John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
M. S. Livingston and Ernest Lawrence are shown standing next to the magnet for one of the earliest cyclotrons.
Courtesy of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
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